Monogen Battling!

Okay, we've all seen it; certain "fans" enjoy bashing on current and past gens and cause flame wars over them. To solve this issue...In September, I and MaillouxB together thought of an AMAZING ALTERNATIVE to flaming gen wars......MONOGEN BATTLING!

The basic idea of it is that you battle with pokemon introduced in your favorite gen. However, since some gens introduced some more powerful ubers than previous gens, there may be some restrictions to be made on the tier so that one gen isn't completely overpowered. We've tried out a few variations of this type of tourney on Pokemon Showdown! and have learned that we DEFINITELY need to make restrictions to this battling to make the experience great for fans of all gens.

If you have any ideas for rules/restrictions for this tier to add, feel free to discuss and I'll update this post to reflect the restrictions that are decided.

Current Rules/Restrictions

ALL Pokemon may have moves introduced from other Gens, and may have DW abilities

ALL Pokemon on a team MUST be introduced from the same gen; no mixing gens is allowed

NFE pokemon ARE allowed in this tier

Gen V tiering is used for all intents and purposes of which Pokemon are "OU" and "Uber" and such

Ideas to Discuss

Considering removing/modifying certain clauses for the tier like Evasion Clause

I figure that most standard games would run OU; Ubers is generally lacking Gens 1 and 2. From what I've seen, there's a bit of a lack of Gen 4, even despite some great OU pokes; Rotom and Magnezone being two of them. I don't really see a need to change any tiers other than what's set now- Good Monogen teams aren't just OU pokes, after all.

As for Clauses, Every tier has some abuser of some kind. I can't imagine there would be a need for anything to be revoked, but there tends to be exceptions to the rules. If anything, I'd think that Species Clause could take a dive.

I was thinking of posting something like this, only it would be five different tiers: Kanto tier, Johto tier, Hoenn tier, Sinnoh tier, and Unova tier.

Each tier is limited to pokemon released in their respective generations. This means that in the Hoenn tier, Salamece, Breloom, and other third gen pokemon are allowed but pokemon like Alakazam and Skarmory are not despite being available in the Hoenn region.

All of the clauses would remain intact, but all other bans lifted until they are deemed to powerful, with the exception of obvious Uber pokemon like Mewtwo, Rayquaza, and Palkia. This means that certain banned strategies, like Drizzle/swift swim could be used, but only in the Johto tier where Politoad resides, however it may be banned later if decided too powerful. Also, certain banned pokemon would have their bans lifted if they are not exceedingly powerful in their own tier. Excadrill for example, could be used in the Unova tier as there are no pokemon with sand stream in the tier, making it harder to abuse it's ability. Others like Blaziken would likely remained banned as they are far to strong.

As a possible extra rule, pokemon from cross-gen families could be allowed IF they are from a previous gen. As an example, in the Johto tier, pokemon like Magmar, Chansey, and Jolteon are allowed due to being related to 2nd gen pokemon but being from an earlier gen. Conversely, pokemon like Electivire, Honchkrow, and Glaceon are not allowed because they are from a later gen.

I could write so much more about each specific tier, regarding top threats, powerful strategies, etc., but I would like to see what others think of this.

From playing this tier on PO, I know that Gen 1 can create great sun teams. A team like Ninetales, Venusaur, Vicreebel, Chansey and even something like Scarf Charizard (no, don't laugh, it's actually usable under perma-sun) and a spinner can wreak havok, especially when few other auto-weather teams are viable.

One thing I took inventory of is the amount of spinners in each tier. Kanto has Blastoise, Cloyster, Starmie, Sandslash, Kabutops, Tentacruel, Hitmonchan, and Hitmonlee. Johto has Forretress, Donphan, Hitmontop (as well as the other Hitmons due to the cross gen family rule), and Delibird (lol). Hoenn has Torkoal, Claydol, Armaldo, and Spinda. And Unova has only Excadrill and Cryogonal. However, Sinnoh has absolutely no spinners. This means the only way to keep hazards off is to use Espeon, and that is only legal if the cross gen family rule is allowed.

Another important thing to note is the weather starters. The Kanto tier has only Ninetales so, as MeteorMiss pointed out, sun is a real dominating strategy. The Johto tier has both Politoad and Tyranitar so rain and sand will be fighting for dominance. The Sinnoh tier has Hippowdon and Abomosnow, but with so few hail abusers in the tier, sand is likely to be more widely used. Hoenn and Unova are both "weatherless" because they lack any permanent weather starters (outside the legendaries Kyogre and Groudon), so weather teams will be less common strategies.

Doubles President

Why make separate tiers for every generation though? Not does it cut down on an already tiny playerbase, but it makes the pool of usable Pokemon even smaller, effectively cutting down on metagame diversity.

Gen 2 stall has dozens of options.. it is crazy. Everything from Celebi to Skarmbliss to Crocune. AND it has Politoed+Kingdra+Scizor. I don't understand how people say Gen V is overpowered when Gen 2 brought in a lot less total Pokemon, but a lot more viable Pokemon.

As Arctic had already said, splitting the gens like you state just a bad idea unless you have a bigger playerbase..... Which you don't have, however, the first idea that this thread is about is a wonderful idea! The toad without Dragonite would be interesting due to them both being in different regions... I honestly don't think species from older gens should be moved over to newer gens, which means Johto and Sinnoh lack a number of options... But Sinnoh has Heatran, Lucario, hail... Likewise Johto also has powerful options. Off the top of my head, I'm drawing a blank on what powerful pokemon Hoenn would have at their dissposal but that's just me. *shrugs* Unova has newer tricks and gimmicks to abuse, but this idea seems actually fairly balanced and neat. :) (Don't make funs of the terrible Rapid Spinner named Delibird. That's mean... e~e)

I think there would be more than a few problems with fighting other gens. Some of the gens introduced a very poor number of specific types, such as the lack of dark types in Gen I. Also, the lack of permanent weather setters in gens 3 and 5 would take away from their ability to counter weather conditions, perhaps even needing to resort to giving up precious moveslots just to survive. Various other problems also arise, but it would take too long to list all of them.

Limiting the battles to just one generation, like VGC 2011 did, would make for better tiers than just one or two generations ending up as the only real competitors in a single tier. Of course, it could take some work to find out what is too overpowered and get rid of it, but that can be achieved with a little bit of time and help from other players. The tiny player base is inevitable, but it could easily grow. Gen V tier would probably start out the biggest because of VGC 2011, and its growth would also promote the growth of the other four (or five if you count X and Y).